


L.O.R.D.S.

by riseelectric



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseelectric/pseuds/riseelectric
Summary: An unedited draft of a ghost story from 2012.





	1. Chapter 1

"Good morrow! How are you, my darling?"

Footsteps in the dark. He found her staring at nothing, and observed for the thousandth time that her eyes were just as whitewashed as the walls, if not more so. There was no way of knowing whether if it had been a birth defect or not, and it constantly fascinated him. Initially, people were always surprised (and more than slightly unnerved) when she confirmed (staring right at them in the sort of manner a cat fixates on its prey) that she could, in fact, see out of them, but he was accustomed to the pupil-and-iris-less gaze that fixed itself upon him now. Time tended to do that: take the surprise and wonder out of things.

She didn't answer his cheery greeting, merely rolled and fingered the paper in her hands. Good morrow, indeed. There was no time here, and she'd never condoned his need to create the semblance of  it passing. He was used to her unresponsiveness, yet the motion of her digits around the paper drew his gaze, which grew stern.

"You haven't drawn the key yet? It's tonight, you know."

Her shoulders rolled in a way that was almost nonchalant, and she made a decidedly unconcerned noise.

"You sure you want to cut it this close?" He chuckled at his own pun, and if she were more prone to displaying emotions she would have rolled her eyes. "You don't want to muck up the crossing, trust me."

She didn't deign to answer him, merely making a lazily impatient gesture at him that quite plainly said 'I'll be fine'.

He shrugged in return. "If you say so."

She finally opened her mouth. "I do."

The voice was quiet, but his ears were sharper than most and he caught what she said. There was a silence that was not altogether uncomfortable as he paused and tried to voice his thoughts. It was almost awkward.

"Er, do be careful, won't you? Try to get back here in one piece, eh?"

She looked up. He was never one to get sentimental, though she could see where he was coming from. Despite herself, her lips lifted in a faint half-smile. "All right."

"It's just I'd hate to see all my hard work wasted, you know? All these years of being a surrogate father?"

"I am fond of you too, Leicester."

She looked at the wall he was now considering nonchalantly, seeing within her mind's eye a door wreathed in flame. Then she shrugged again, as if she couldn't care less about the outcome of her upcoming mission. There was a heavy book next to her, leather bound and aged, and now she picked it up, opening it to a dog-eared page.

The man called Leicester, who sported several stitches in a ring around his neck, caught the hint and left, though she didn't stop reading when he did.

There were more interesting ways to pass the time in limbo, like hanging out with her adoptive father, she supposed... but none of them were particularly appealing right now.

She just wanted time alone before it was time to come, reap.


	2. Chapter 2

The day began with shouts issuing from the house next door at six am in the morning, followed by the sound of a door slamming and the rumble of the engine as the car left the driveway. Gill didn't even look up from his coffee, though his wife of thirty-five years did. She pushed the curtains aside a crack, sighing as she watched the black-haired girl storm out and away.

"Was that Valencia?"

"Yes." She sighed.

Gill grunted. "That's the sixth time this week."

Heather sighed again, and turned away from the window. She picked up a piece of toast and began buttering it. "I wonder what it is this time?"

"It's none of our business," Gill said shortly. The newspaper rustled as he turned the page. "At least she's physically able to drive this time."

Heather shuddered. The memory of the girl's bloodied face wasn't one she wanted to recall, nor her dislocated arm, nor her bruised ribs. It was pure luck that Gill had met her coming back from a brisk morning walk, the girl wincing with every step and holding her left arm, which later turned out to be fractured as well. He had brought her back and sat her down, making her a cup of strong tea while Heather dialed the ambulance, and then the police for good measure. From outside 

"Another toast, dear?"

Gill grunted. "It's all right. 'M full."

It hadn't been the first time the two parties had interacted, but the fact remained that they were more neighbours than friends, and few words were said in the kitchen that day.

As far as first impressions go, both he and Heather had liked the girl well enough. She hadn't complained once about the pain, only screwing her face up while Gill was examining her many injuries. She was polite. When she noticed the worry on their faces she'd hastened to assure them that they were only superficial wounds, trying to smile but only managing a grimace. She only clammed up when they'd inquired after the cause of her injuries, insisting that it was an accident and that she could handle it. Of course, they hadn't believed a word, and had exchanged meaningful glances when they thought she wasn't looking. The girl stayed quiet while Heather fussed over her, and then the paramedics arrived just as the atmosphere was about to turn awkward; that was the last they saw of the black-haired girl, at least until now.

They heard plenty of her, though, and it wasn't just her voice that filtered through the walls. It became a regular occurrence throughout the week to hear enraged shouts from as early as four in the morning, and over time Gill pieced together a dysfunctional family, including an alcoholic father, an emotionally unstable brother, and a jealous lover. Or perhaps a combination of any of those; it was exceedingly difficult to tell apart raised voices, and (for the most part) the old couple held back from spying and generally putting their noses in where they didn't belong. Beyond that, they didn't know much, nor did Gill care to. In fact, when Heather talked of wanting to follow up on the girl's well-being after their encounter, Gill had talked her out of it. They were quiet folk, retired, and he'd had experienced enough in his life without concerning himself with other people's.

The sound of the car faded away. The peace seemed to be restored.

Heather sighed for the third time that morning and put down her piece of toast untouched.

"Go back to sleep?" Gill suggested, looking up at her concernedly. She only rose this early to make him breakfast, he knew. And seeing the girl had distressed her, he could tell.

"Maybe. Yes. I think I will," she said, gazing towards the window. Then she turned to him and smiled. "See if Hart wants to come with us for dinner later. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Gill smiled back at his wife. "I'll ask him. Go sleep, love."

She kissed his cheek, then left. Gill watched her go, and then thought about the black-haired girl once more, wondering where she was. Then he pushed her from his mind, unknowing of the fact that he would never see her alive again.

The yelling started early in the evening, louder and angrier than any of the previous fights had been. If Gill and Heather had been home, perhaps the police might have arrived sooner, and the tragedy averted (as a Second Civil War veteran, Gill had developed a knack for sensing when there was about to be blood in the air.)

It began with how most of their arguments begin: a passive-aggressive accusation brought about by resentment. Once upon a time alcohol played a hand as well; the family had done nothing but deteriorate since the mother died.

For once, the black-haired girl did not rise to the bait, knowing all too well it would only end in unpleasantness; that and her secret kept her temper down and her hopes high. The name-calling began when it became clear the hurled accusations were doing no good in getting a rise out of her, soon degenerating into nothing less than verbal abuse. It was childish, really, and with effort she reigned herself in, refused to sink to his level. Then the brother came in, and because she still loved him the half-truths that he spat at her induced in her a hurt she concealed with a lashing anger, dealt out with blows of her own. What was a one-sided fight became two against one, and somewhere between all the misconceptions the line dividing sanity and madness was crossed. A brief respite: while the black-haired girl crossed the kitchen towards the entrance, drawing out her phone, her father was drawing out the gun from the bottom drawer of the desk in the study.

She left the house for the last time around nine, followed by the father. Her call had brought the boyfriend and his own automatic, a fact quickly established when a shot rang and blood gushed in an arc from the brother's shoulder.

A stand-off with the black haired girl in the middle. The father gave her one warning, one she refused to heed. She'd gone not ten steps towards the outstretched arms of the boyfriend before two cracks rent the air and blood blossomed from her torso. Dead before she hit the ground.

There was nothing more to be said. Domestic violence was such common crime these days, the small crowd muttered regretfully to one another as the police hauled the angry father, the distraught brother and the screaming boyfriend away. Nothing more to be said, with her blood still warm on the ground.

Heather no longer looked out the window; there was no need to. The house next door was silent these days, and stayed so.

* * *

In another realm, the white-eyed girl set down the blade and picked up the paper key that she'd cut out.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a loud rasping noise from the floor, and Leslie put her book down in her lap. Her appearance still looked the same, though the place where she was now was quite a different location from where she had conversed with Leicester.   
The crossing had been successful, as awful as the experience had been. If everything went well, it would be the last time Leslie would make the journey alone, if at all.

She watched the black-haired girl wake, gasping and clawing at her bloodstained chest, where four holes were clearly visible. Her charge had a thin frame; her chin was sharp and pointed, with a mess of curls framing her visage. There was a scar marring her brow, the product of her father, perhaps. She had seen enough of the man to guess that it was the sort of thing he could do.

Wordlessly, she leaned over and placed a hand behind the black-haired girl's back, supporting her as she dry-heaved and shivered. Coming back to life wasn't an easy thing, she had been told, if living was the right term. Leslie wouldn't know. Some days, when she was in a speculative mood, she imagined that her own awakening had only been cold and not particularly painful, considering the circumstances of her own death. It would certainly explain why she had a particular penchant for heat.

The girl on the floor finally composed herself, though she was still breathing in large, gasping breaths. She looked up, eyes wide. In her voice was a kind of desperation heard only from the recently deceased, though her words were cliché.

"Where am I? Who are you? Tell me what's going on!"

Her fingers scrabbled down to the wet holes in her chest, and she gulped, shuddering. Clearly, she remembered how it felt when she acquired them.

Then she noticed Leslie's eyes, and jumped, startled and more than a little frightened.

"My name is Leslie," Leslie intoned indifferently, drawing back. "and I am your reaper. You're dead."

There was a pause. Leslie supposed that she could have been less blase. Oh well.

She attempts to save the situation. "That's all there really is to say. Sorry about the eyes." She added, unconvincingly.

"Dead?"

The girl looked at her again, and Leslie saw the horror gradually diminishing as another emotion replaced it. It was interesting to note that the black-haired girl looked more shrewd than panicky, as if she was trying to decide whether or not Leslie was joking. There was a myriad of emotions that were flitting across her face that told Leslie all too clearly that she was still trying to get a grip on herself, but fear was not one of them. In fact, as far as Leslie could tell she was doing a remarkably good job of not losing her head at learning that she was not one of the living anymore.

(Losing her head. Briefly, Leslie wished Leicester was here, only because she knew he'd have appreciated the unintended pun.)

Leslie liked that. It would make her job slightly easier, hopefully.

"What's your name?"

The black-haired girl had looked down and was rocking backward and forwards, knees drawn to her bullet-ridden chest. Her head was in her hands, and she was muttering to herself, appearing to be deep in thought. When Leslie asked the question again, she didn't look up.

Leslie waited.

"Aren't you supposed to know who I am?" the girl finally muttered in response. "If you're death, I mean... you know who's died, right? You know who you're coming to... pick up?"

"That's not what I said." Leslie reached down and tugged at the girl's arm. "You've already met death. I'm just your reaper."

"O-oh." The girl looked nonplussed, and Leslie didn't clarify. The explanation could come later, if at all.

"Well?" Leslie asked for the third time, a little impatiently. "Your name?"

"It's Valencia. Valencia... Lucero." She frowned, as if she wasn't sure entirely sure of the accuracy of what she just said.

"Okay. Can you walk?"

"Wait."

Valencia looked around. They were in a large, dingy room, void of anything except four dirty walls, a flickering light bulb and a bed frame shoved haphazardly against the closed doorway. There were drawings on the walls, markings upon markings depicting both undecipherable and unspeakable things. Many seemed to be painted or carved with what seemed like less-than-traditional mediums, and Leslie watched Valencia shudder as she made out that the blood paintings were exactly what they looked like.

"What's all this?" she said, gesturing towards the peeling paint, the drawings.

Leslie glanced unconcernedly at them. "They are what people wanted to leave behind. Thoughts, words. Stuff."

"Why are they written in--"

"Blood?" Leslie shrugged. "Do you see anything else that can be used to write with?"

"No?"

"Exactly."

For the first time, Valencia glanced uncertainly towards the blocked doorway.

"I'm dead, yes?"

Leslie sighed through her nose. "Yes."

"And you're my... reaper?"

"Yes."

"Should I leave something behind as well?" Valencia asked hesitantly, giving the walls another look.

"Only if you want to."

"I don't really want to."

Leslie shrugged one shoulder.

"Am I in heaven?"

Leslie stared at her. Valencia stared back.

"No, this is not heaven." Leslie said finally. "And nor is it hell. Just come with me. You can walk, yes?"

Valencia could, although she winced with every step. Leslie grabbed her arm roughly, and began leading her towards the blocked doorway. The girl hadn't seemed to have noticed, or cared about the whereabouts of their current destination, not yet anyway. She couldn't seem to stop fingering the ragged edges of the bullet holes in her chest either, as though she was doing it unconsciously. Either way, it looked disconcerting, even more so when her hand slipped and her finger sank in up to the first knuckle with a soft squelch.

Leslie grabbed her hand, pulling it out with a pop. "Don't do that," she said shortly. "it won't make any difference."

"If it's not going to make a difference then it's not going to matter what I do to it, is it?" Valencia muttered almost rebelliously, and Leslie looked at her, eyebrows raised. The other girl had taken to examining her finger, which was now coated with red.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

They had stopped in front of the door. The bedframe blocking the entrance was just a few inches from their knees; a barrier. Leslie turned back to her charge and said, "Where we need to go is beyond that door. From then on up to a certain point, I will be following your lead."

Her tone had turned brisk and business-like. Valencia picked up on it, and Leslie picked up on the fact that the other girl had picked up on it.

"You're dead." The reaper said stolidly. "You need to acknowledge this with more than your brain. You must accept wholly and completely that you are no longer bound by the rules of the living."

Leslie gestured towards the doorway, arm outstretched. "Go on."

Valencia was now looking extremely nervous for all that she was facing an inanimate object. "But what do I do?"

"Whatever seems right," Leslie deadpanned.

The girl spent several minutes glaring at the brass bedframe. It was as old as the room looked, and looked equally rusted. There was nothing remotely sinister about it at all, but all the same it gave off an unnatural chilliness when Valencia tried to shove the whole thing aside. The bedframe did not budge, however, not even a little bit.

"All right then." Valencia abandoned that approach almost instantly as soon as she started. There was a few minutes silence while she stood there, contemplating. Leslie said nothing, but simply watched.

Then, Valencia took a deep breath, strode forwards, and did not stop. She passed through the bedframe, eyes shut, while Leslie looked on. She opened her eyes when she reached the middle of the frame. Looking down at it, now seeming to be growing out of her thighs, Valencia flinched, but that was to be expected. 

When she reached the doorway, she looked back questioningly at Leslie, who gave a small nod. All in all, Leslie was impressed, despite herself. From what she'd heard, not very many people were this quick on the uptake. Leicester had told her it wouldn't be all that unusual for Valencia to had to have given it another three or four tries, and apparently it had taken Lions' charge-- Leslie couldn't recall his name anymore -- an upwards of fifteen times, if the man's account of his reaping was to be taken seriously. Points for imagination, Leicester had always commented thoughtfully.

Book tucked under one arm, Leslie walked forwards to meet Valencia, who had turned back towards the doorway. She placed an experimental hand against the door, and was met with no resistance.  "What's on the other side?" she asked Leslie in a whisper, withdrawing her hand from where it had disappeared right through the door.

"Nothing you have to be afraid of."

Valencia looked back one last time at the room of final farewells. She took a deep breath that Leslie supposed was to reassure herself but only came out shaky and uncertain.

"Let's go, then."

And they went.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm... I'm home."

Valencia sounded as shocked as she looked. She was looking down the driveway where her life had been ended by bullets that were either fired by her brother, lover, or father. She wasn't to know which.

"Why is it so empty?" she asked, turning to Leslie for answers. It was true, there wasn't a sign of life anywhere, not the neighbour's dog, not anything.

"It won't stay that way for long. The living have a way of making themselves known." The other girl shrugged. She hadn't given any sign of, well, anything at all. Instead, she had dropped Valencia's hand and was fishing around in her pocket for the paper key she had cut out earlier, the key to opening the passageway between the planes.

"We don't belong here," Leslie was saying, "and we don't have much time."

She had taken it out and was in the act of sticking it into the air when Valencia stepped back, away from her. She turned to look at the other girl. "Yes?"

Valencia was staring at her incredulously, a mixture of defiance and disbelief. "I'm not going wherever you're taking me until I've seen my brother." she announced, glaring slightly.

Leslie blinked at her, and then her eyes narrowed. "You can't."

"Says who?"

"We have to leave, now."

In response, Valencia stepped back some more, now openly glaring. Leslie couldn't believe it, her charge had been cooperative thus far, why wasn't she now? Here was the hurdle that Chide had not managed to overcome, the one that Triss admitted to almost failing at.

"Valencia. You're dead." Leslie put the key into the keyhole and left it where it was, and it stayed there, hovering in the air. Valencia did a double take at the sight of the piece of paper seemingly floating on nothing, but otherwise didn't take her wary gaze off Leslie. "You have to move on. If you start seeing the living again, it'll be too late."

"And why should that be a bad thing?" Valencia shot back.

"Because the dead don't belong among the living," Leslie said calmly. "It wouldn’t be natural, and you won't last long either."

The other girl didn't look convinced, but merely crossed her arms tightly. "I just want to say good bye, that's all."

Leslie gave a small sigh. "I'm afraid you don't have that luxury. No one does." Then, quieter. "If you don't leave now, you never will."   
Valencia said nothing.

"You don't want to be a ghost in this plane." Leslie tried again. "Believe me. How many ghost stories have you heard that's ended well?"

I am terrible at this persuading thing, Leslie thought. Valencia didn't seem to be considering what she was saying at all, and time was still ticking.

""Will I be able to come back?"

"Perhaps."

"What's that mean?"

Leslie shrugs. "I have never attempted such before, nor have I sought out those who have tried."

"There are others?" 

"The ones back home."

"Home?"

"Yes."

"Where's that?"

Leslie gives the black-haired girl a look, one that says that her patience is fast running out.

"Are you coming?" She asks finally.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes and no."

"What's that mean!?"

"Yes, you don't have a choice. Not really."

Valencia made an exasperated noise. "What happens if I stay?"

"You will go mad," Leslie said quietly, without hesitation. The blankness of her eyes bored into the other girl's. "You will never belong.  Loneliness will consume you, and you will become a stain on the earth. You will become something bad, something irreversible."

There is another one of those long silences.

"You're not lying, are you."

Leslie doesn't answer. It's not a real question.

"All right then." Valencia said, finally dropping her gaze. She looked back at her house again, and then stepped back towards Leslie. There was a sort of resigned sadness on her features, and she kept looking down the driveway where she had grown up.   
Leslie, feeling more relieved that she let on, turned back to the key. It was where she had left it, and now she took it between her thumb and forefinger.

"Hold on to my arm," she instructed Valencia. Something in her voice had shifted, now that she was sure of Valencia's cooperation. "and no matter what happens, don't let go."

The other girl noticed the tone change, and looked up, asking apprehensively. "What's wrong? Why do you sound like that?"

"There is only one way into limbo, and that is through Discordia."

As soon as the key turned in the lock, the paper started burning, eating away at the key until there was nothing left. It didn't stop there however, and as the two girls watched, a line of fire now framed a space that was clearly in the shape of a doorway. The driveway behind it was melting away, the cement and the lawns shimmering away into an inky blackness that seemed to want to spill out beyond the confines of the flames. It looked wrong, amiss. It looked like all of the dark places of the world gathered in one place, and it looked strangely... hungry.

"We have to go into that?" Valencia whispered.

"We're going to go through it."

Leslie dropped her hand, and she shifted her book again, hugging it firmly to her chest. Her other arm she encircled around Valencia's waist. Said girl had obeyed her earlier instruction, and was pressing closer to Leslie than she normally would have done. Leslie didn't blame her.

Her earlier crossing had been successful, but it hadn't been pleasant. This was probably going to be the same.

Valencia was muttering something Leslie couldn’t understand, and she supposed that it was another language the other girl was speaking.

"Valencia?"

"Y-yeah. I'm ready."

"Whatever you do, don't let go." Leslie repeated her earlier words, feeling Valencia nod. They took their first step into the dark.   



End file.
